Dating While Waiting

Dating While Waiting

You can date while you’re practicing The Wait. You just can’t date in the same way you did before.

Even if you’re practicing The Wait and remaining celibate, you need to assess if you and the person you’re dating have passion. Letting sex wait allows you to evaluate all the aspects of your attraction—physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual—and figure out if your chemistry is real and has the potential to last.

Here are some tips to help you date in a new kind of way:

1.Tell Your Date About The Wait

If you feel convicted to practice The Wait, you’ve got to tell the people you’re dating about it.

Some might say that they respect what you’re doing but then try to change your mind.

Others might get it, ask you about it, and embrace it. Those are the ones with whom something long-term becomes possible.

So, do not be afraid to tell your date about your choice to be celibate.

2. Beware of Your List

Tear up your List. Here’s the thing: we all know that nobody is going to check every box on that List. So, are you really open to the right person even if the right person checks none of the boxes on your List?

On our first date, Meagan asked if we could go out on the patio so she could have a smoke. I was asking myself, “Lord, what in the world are you doing?” It wasn’t just that Meagan’s smoking caught me by surprise. She was also an actress and had a reputation as a party girl.

There were other things on my List of nonstarters. Well, you know what they say: God loves to make a man break a vow. Here was God, asking me to overlook important things on my List. To get to know her—not her bad habits or other people’s perception of who she was—I had to have faith.

For Meagan, when God revealed to her that I was going to be her husband, she didn’t realize a preacher. Not that she ever had anything against men in ministry, but it wasn’t exactly high on her List. She knew that being in ministry comes with a lot of scrutiny and judgment, yet she needed to get to know who I was as a man and not let her preconceived notions of “preacher” stop her from doing that.

When you begin to free yourself from being so rigidly attached to your List, you open yourself up to unconditional love. In the end, we learned a powerful lesson: Unconditional love means accepting someone for who they are now, not who you hope they will be one day.

3. No DUI’s (Dating Under Infatuation)

If there’s one thing our story should make clear, it’s that being in The Wait does not mean you’ll know what to do when you meet someone amazing. In fact, meeting someone like that could make waiting harder!

DUI in this book means “Dating Under Infatuation”: the jumpy shot of adrenaline we get when he touches our arm, the warm rush we feel when she smiles at us from across the room.

Love is deeper, more mature, and subtler. When we confuse it with infatuation and sexual chemistry, we waste years chasing shadows, trying to satisfy our need for certainty or validation, and blinding ourselves to how God is trying to bless us.

4. Know What You Deserve

This is a time to take stock of who you are, what you want, and why you’ve been having relationship troubles.

Before you rejoin the dating scene answer three questions: What relationship pattern do I want to break? What kind of person do I want in my life? What do I deserve?

You deserve respect, fulfillment, joy, and the kind of profound, real love that only comes when you get to know someone’s spirit and when you love yourself enough to let them love you.

Now that you have some tips on how to date while you wait, it’s time to take action! In the comments below, let me know how you’re planning to make a change in your dating life TODAY!

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